Living Dead Girl (9 page)

"Do I sound okay?"

I nod. He calls and then, when he's done, shows me Annabel's new clothes again, ones we had to buy at the thrift store two towns away. (Birthday gift for my cousin, I was supposed to say if anyone asked. No one did. The man in front of us bought six faded ladies' bras and an old television set, wood-paneled with a huge number pad worn down from someone pushing in channels.)

We bought old clothes, jeans with pink trim on the
pockets, elastic waist and boxy shape. Nothing like the jeans I've seen shopping with Ray lately, the kind that curl in at the waist and push out at the hips, no more girls' section for me, salespeople saying, "Oh, they do grow up so fast now, don't they?" and Ray's mouth twitching, then buying me boy's jeans. Narrowing his eyes at home as I hold my breath and tug them into place.

Smiling as they slip over my hips. Still in kids' clothes, little girl playing at being a boy.

Come over here and let me see. Let me see my little Alice.

Ray went a little crazy with the shirts, tiny tanks and tees, blouses with lace and shiny white buttons shaped like pearls. Skirts too, little ones with flippy bottoms, flounces for him to toss up.

New underpants bought at the big store where we buy toilet paper and the cleaner I use to mop the floor, white only, no lace, no trim, smaller than mine. Smaller than mine, Ray noticed, and no dinner for me that night.

Sneakers with pink shoelaces, we bought those too. Ray was sure he knew her size.

"I'm good at guessing," he said. "I'm good at knowing what will be just right. Who will be." A smile for a little girl, red-haired, freckled, looking at sandals near us.

Girl smiled back. Ray went over to look at shoes with her, oh I have a little girl about your age, no she isn't here
she's home sick, hold out your leg so I can see the shoe, yes I think I like that, I do. Come on, Alice.

Pulling over on the way home, empty construction site, abandoned office building. So eager it is over in seconds.

"I wish all little girls could be like that," Ray said. "Stay like they are forever. Never grow up into what they all become."

Pointing at a woman struggling with the hands of two little girls at the bus stop, angry-faced and exhausted-looking, quick smack one, two, on the back of the girls' heads.

"Who could hurt a child like that?" he says. "Someone should report her. I hope someone does. Children should be loved. They are love."

AFTER THE WOODS, AFTER I TRIED TO hold out my hand for a way back to 623 Daisy Lane, Ray carried me to the truck. "See this?" he said, and parted his hair with his fingers, showed me long silvery lines on his scalp. "My mother did that. Cut me when my hair got dirty, cut me trying to get the tangles out. If I'd done a better job, she wouldn't have had to do it."

He drew my hand, paper limp and smeared with dirt, to his head. "I don't want to be like her," he said. "I won't be like her. But I will have to punish someone if you can't be good. And you want to be good, don't you?"

Oh yes I said yes I will be good please let's just go home
don't take me back there again I want to go home with you now.

He smiled. Ray's smile is wide and sunny, happy.

Rotten, dead inside, underneath.

When I smile, I think it looks like his.

AS I'M WATCHING THE MORNING TALK shows, Ray is mapping out roads, maps open all across the kitchen table, and I realize I will not see this apartment again. Goodbye singing refrigerator.

Nothing else is worth thinking about, and I go back to watching people yell at each other. Today men who didn't know they were dating men who were pretending to be women are screaming they were tricked, they aren't like that--that way, they keep saying, I'm not that way.

I wonder what TV will be like in the desert, if the channels will be in the same place or if I will have to learn everything again.

Annabel will cry a lot. She will say she is Lucy. She will want to go outside. She will talk about her parents. Her brother.

Maybe I will tell her that I know him. That he hated having to pick her up. That he used to have me do something Ray will teach her how to do. That everyone will think he's the reason why she's gone.

I will have her bring me water. I will eat her food. Help her stay little for longer than I did. Take her to the pool and let her swim.

If she tried to sink, to bury herself in the water, would I let her?

No. I would drag her out. Make her breathe. Take her back to Ray. And then, one night, when he is with her, I will run. I will run and I will-—

I forgot. I forgot my plan. A strange rusty noise comes out of my mouth, sharp like a knife. Ray looks up, eyes narrowed, and I point at the TV.

"Shouldn't watch that trash," he says. "It's not funny, other people's pain."

I nod. Yes, Ray. Yes.

I laughed? Is that what that sound was?

I feel so light inside. Like I could float away.

I forgot my plan but I have a plan. I will leave Jake to get in trouble and Ray will have Annabel and 623 Daisy Lane is ...

I will find it. I will buy a map if I need to. Gas and a map and a package or three of those snack cakes with the filling that oozes out of the sides.

Ray touches my face. "Going to the park," he says. "See you soon."

I nod, and he pinches my jaw.

Yes, I say. Yes. See you soon.

He smears a thumb over my neck, pushing pressure, but then kisses my forehead and leaves. Off to wait for Annabel. Come into the park, come into his waiting arms.

Alone, I stand up, and the room tilts crazily. I see my breakfast yogurt still sitting on the table. Last night's is there too. A note, written in Ray's long, slow scrawl, says he is proud of me. Says I look beautiful. Next to it is exact change for the bus.

Nothing is in the fridge. It's empty, cleaned out, and I think of the tiny piece of cheese, my special dinner, and how far I have to go today. All I have to do.

I have to eat.

I go down to the laundry room, the walls closing in and out and in and out, and go through the pile sitting on top of the third washer. I find matches, a quarter, and bits of fuzz. I lean my head against the dryer. Warm ka-thunk ka-thunk against my head.

The only other pile of clothes is one that belongs to the
old man who lives under the stairs across from the laundry room. He only ever eats soup and talks endlessly about how poor he is to Ray, who is always in a bad mood after he runs into him.

His clothes smell like unwashed old man, like Ray sometimes does in the morning, and my stomach does a little churning flip as the walls close in and then go back out again.

There is fifty dollars in the old man's pants, tucked into the pocket. Wrapped around it is a grocery list. Types of soup and toilet paper.

I clutch the money in my hand. I walk upstairs. I walk outside.

I walk across the street to the fast-food restaurant Ray sometimes brings food home from, burgers and fries that he eats while telling me about his day or after I have told him how much I missed him. (Show me, he always says. Better show me. My knees are always bruised.)

I order a #2 meal, a two-patty burger with cheese and lettuce and a secret sauce. The container of fries is larger than my hand, and my soda is tall, icy cold in a paper cup.

I eat slowly, because I know I have to at first. But not for long, it doesn't take long, not like in those movies I sometimes watch when the soaps are bad, ones where women cut or starve themselves and eventually learn to be strong,
but the first steps are so hard, their unbroken skin making them sick, a normal meal making them vomit.

I am so hollow there is nothing inside to be pushed out. I eat slowly for half the burger, meat cheese bread exploding on my tongue, then faster, faster.

I want more food but I can wait. Ray will not find the money. Ray will not find me. He will have Annabel and I will go to 623 Daisy Lane and make them leave, tell them I'm sorry but they aren't safe, I tried, I did, but I don't want to do it anymore, don't want to be Alice, living dead girl, anymore.

I will eat in the car on the way there; buy things I see people eating when Ray and I stop to buy gas on the way home from the grocery store every Saturday. Hot dogs and oozy snack cakes and tiny pizzas in a cardboard box. Chips with a well of bright yellow cheese sauce.

I dream, eyes open, all the way to the park.

Annabel is gone when I get there, and on the swings, where she should be sitting, is Ray.

And he is talking to Barbara.

I WANT TO RUN BUT I CAN'T, I CAN'T. I tried and it didn't work, it never works, every day I am an open sore, a walking scream, and it doesn't matter.

No one sees me.

I want to run, but I know there is nowhere I can go.

BARBARA SEES ME AND WAVES. MOTIONS me over. I go, feet moving, always moving to where Ray is. He is watching, smiling easily, and I know I must be careful. I must do what he wants.

Knife at my throat as we waited the day the cop came by. Don't want to don't want to don't want to, he'd whispered. But no one else can have you. I don't want you broken.

"Hey there," Barbara says. "How you doing today?"

I shrug, sullen child, like I am supposed to when people ask questions Ray doesn't want me to answer.

"Good," she says. "That's good. Any more trouble with your brother?"

Shrug again. Don't look at Ray. Don't look to see if he's mad. He will be if you look. My plan, car run food, is still thump bumping around in my head. Will he see it? Did he see it?

"You look a little ... healthier too," Barbara says, and looks at Ray. "This is the girl I was telling you about."

"Oh," Ray says. "I hope you kept the card she gave you. Hope you know there are places--people--who will take care of you."

"I lost it," I say, still not looking at him, but he is mad, he is furious, I hear it in the honey of his voice, and Barbara says, "I have another one," and hands it to me.

"Well, Ray, I'll take you up on that walk to my patrol car now," she says. "I can do some paperwork, catch up on everything. Love the all-day school field trips, that's for sure."

"The park is lovely like this," Ray says. "Very quiet," and walks right by me, Barbara at his side.

I lied and he knows it, she wasn't out sick he will figure it out sick girls don't go on field trips she should have been here but she isn't and he will know he will find the money 623 Daisy Lane is four hours away he has a knife and will use it and it will be all my fault.

I turn, blind staggering for the bus stop because I have to try and stop him say I am sorry say I will be the best girl ever I will do more than hold Annabel down I will show
her what to do, teach her everything while you watch, all the things you want. Anything you want.

Hand on my arm, he has come back for me, he doesn't care who sees, the park is so quiet, he'll take me to the truck, drive away back to where a little girl once lived and I can't stop him, could never stop him, turn and say, "Please, don't. Don't go to them. Just be mad at me."

"What?" Jake says.

"NOTHING," I SAY. "NOTHING. WHAT are you doing here?"

"You said to be here," he says. Cracking voice, tone I know. His eyes are already heavy-lidded, dazed. I wonder how many pills he would need to get through my day.

"Your sister isn't here."

"Yeah, she's at some museum or something. Have to pick her up at school at six, and then she'll want to come here and since she always gets her way I'll have to do it."

"She'll be here? Later?"

"Yeah. Why do you care? Hey, why is that guy watching us? Why is he--he's staring right at you."

I don't have to look to know it's Ray. To guess what Ray is thinking.

"Go away," I tell Jake, mind racing 1, 2, 3, I can fix this, I have to fix this, "but come back later. Meet me later."

"I don't--why?" he says. "Hey, that guy is really sort of--I mean, the way he looks at you, it's like you and him are ..." His voice trails off, surprise shock blooming on his face, in his eyes.

"Are you?" he says, his voice rising on those words. ARE YOU?

Oh I see his eyes, I see what he thinks he knows. He sees but doesn't.

He sees: I am one of those girls, hooking up with an old guy, finding a daddy figure to love cuddle them give them gifts make them crazy using boys like Jake, but it doesn't matter now, not now; yes, I say Yes I am with him but I have to get away from him, you can help just be here tonight, just be here and--

"Save you?" he says, taking one step back, then another. "You're--holy shit. You're serious."

Bring your sister, I was going to say. Bring your sister.

But that is what will save me.

I feel Ray watching me. Judging me. Alice, Alice, Alice, you lied to me you aren't my little girl you have to be punished why do you make me do these things? They hurt me so much more than they hurt you.

"Please," I say to Jake, "please be here, just you and your sister be here, right here, I will be here and--"

"And I'll stop him," he says, weird scared happy expression twitching across his face. "You want me to stop him."

He can't, there is no way he ever could. How can he not see that? But I don't say that, just watch his eyes. Watch feelings cross like shadows, pity understanding horror lust.

Broken girls will do anything, and in the end, that's what he sees. They are empty inside, and nothing can fill them.

But they will let you try.

"I'll be here," he says, and grins, standing up taller, dreaming. "I'll get you and when he comes and everything goes down, then we'll see ..." Words trail off, I watch him dream like a once upon a time little girl used to. Big dreams.

Impossible dreams.

He can't stop Ray. Nothing can. Nothing will. But the plan will work now. The plan will still work.

"Yes," I say, and force myself to touch his arm, sliding my hand across his skin like he's Ray, like I must do to show Ray how much I love him, how glad I am that he takes care of me. "Yes, you can fix everything. Tonight."